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International Labor Organization: Austerity Will Drive Millions Of Job Losses Worldwide This Year

CP  |  By Posted: 04/30/2012 7:03 am Updated: 05/ 2/2012 10:24 am

GENEVA - Global unemployment will hit 202 million this year, or 6.1 per cent, as debt-driven austerity measures hammer job markets and threaten to drive Europe into recession, the U.N. labour agency predicted Monday.

In a gloomy forecast, the International Labor Organization predicted unemployment, which stood at 196 million at the end of 2011, would edge up further in 2013, with the long-term unemployed and young people hit particularly hard.

The "narrow focus of many eurozone countries on fiscal austerity is deepening the jobs crisis and could even lead to another recession in Europe," said Raymond Torres, the report's lead author.

7 AUSTERITY HORROR SHOWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

"Austerity has not produced more economic growth," he told reporters.

With 50 million jobs vanished since the 2008-09 global financial crisis, the Geneva-based ILO's report said said, "the global employment situation is alarming and shows no signs of recovery in the near future" despite signs of economic growth in some regions.

"It is unlikely that the world economy will grow at a sufficient pace over the next couple of years to both close the existing jobs deficit and provide employment for the over 80 million people expected to enter the labour market during this period," the report said.

The unemployment rate has risen across nearly two-thirds of European nations since 2010, the ILO said, but the labour market has also "stalled" in the U.S., Japan and other advanced economies.

In China, the gains are coming slower for a better educated working-age population, and through much of the Middle East and Africa the "jobs deficits remain acute," the ILO report said.

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GENEVA - Global unemployment will hit 202 million this year, or 6.1 per cent, as debt-driven austerity measures hammer job markets and threaten to drive Europe into recession, the U.N. labour agency p...
GENEVA - Global unemployment will hit 202 million this year, or 6.1 per cent, as debt-driven austerity measures hammer job markets and threaten to drive Europe into recession, the U.N. labour agency p...
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grizzly bear55
King of the forest
451 Fans
04:41 PM on 04/30/2012
Going bankrupt is no better.

All countries have to get their finances in order, after all the world governments are the custodians of the tax payers money and it's not theirs to do with as they wish.
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procrustes13
508 Fans
08:34 PM on 04/30/2012
Countries that control their own currencies, with debts in their own currencies, cannot go bankrupt. Countries with debts in their own currencies with a lender of last resort in that currency cannot go bankrupt. Thus, the US cannot go bankrupt, Canada cannot go bankrupt, Britain cannot go bankrupt, Japan cannot go bankrupt... Japan has 250% debt to GDP ratio and their ten year bonds go at 0.91%. The US isn't even at 100% debt to GDP... Britain by the way had over 250% debt to GDP in gold standard British Empire days! They weren't bankrupt then.
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realitytrumpsbull
Two 'alves of coconut!
2065 Fans
08:56 AM on 04/30/2012
They need to figure out the budget mess, somehow, one of the tools you can use there is eliminating positions. Much hate and discontent will ensue, but the people elected into the positions they're chosen for, have the duty of managing the apparatus and not letting everything go cattywampus. Can't be all things to all people, and if The Government needs to save money, and they have to let you go or just not hire you to begin with to accomplish that goal...just think of what it's like to be The Military and not be able to buy that next fighter-bomber. Your problems are small, by comparison. And, there's online job boards and other resources to at least give you a chance to find something. No guarantees in life, the only constant, is change.
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homwwilk
44 Fans
01:46 PM on 04/30/2012
Figuring out the budget mess cannot be done on he backs of people. A great deal of the budget deficit and the debt burden of any government can be directly attributable to programs such as the bail out of banks , subsidies of one kind or another to corporations as well a the very obscene spending plans of a military that concentrates on fighting wars outside the country. The only thing that laying off people will do is remove their spending from the economy thereby excacerbating the problems.

Yes , I agree , there are no guarantees in life but that does not mean governments should exist to make things worse. There whole existence should be to enhance the lives of the people. The people we elect in Canada, by and large , have forgotten this for their own purposes.
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procrustes13
508 Fans
08:36 PM on 04/30/2012
These are just numbers. What is money? What are these numbers for? They are to produce and to have what is required to consume. Now, in the name of some numbers, let's cut back on production, let's idle people and productive capacity... yes, a very smart idea that is. A fiction being used to limit reality.
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